by Randal Sloan
So those high in the Chinese government suspected the rebels were going to try to capture the base and attempt to launch its missiles, but their leading experts insisted that the rebels would never be able to override the launch codes to actually launch them. Chen and a number of similar minded men knew better, but enough believed them that they were given only a limited ability to respond. They didn’t want to let the world know about their rebels, as it was a huge embarrassment to them and undermined the still prevalent belief that the Chinese government had total control.
Chen had just inherited this problem, but he couldn’t move troops to support a response unless he had irrefutable evidence that not only were the rebels planning to overtake the base, they somehow had a way to launch them. That didn’t give him many options.
Chen had immediately sent intelligence assets into the area, one of them a friend of his that was one of the best in the business. So he was impatiently awaiting to hear back from his friend, but he knew he had only begun the journey to reach the location. Chen was also worried about Space Tech. It had been a Space Tech craft that the idiots had attacked, and although she had summarily dispatched the whole lot of them in some of the most amazing marksmanship Chen had ever seen, the CEO of Space Tech was very angry with his government for their mediocre response to the incident. Eventually, Chen knew, his government would have to acknowledge the rebels existed, and the sooner they did that, the sooner they could clean them out. But they just weren’t prepared to do that yet.
All that had led to the message Chen had just sent to his daughter. He was nervously awaiting her response, hoping she would be able to help with the situation with Space Tech. And secretly, he was hoping Space Tech would solve their little problem with the rebels. He just had a feeling that if the situation with the rebels wasn’t resolved soon, it was going to be really bad. Bad for the whole world!
#
The next morning Julie received a visit from her special envoy from China, Xiu. It had turned out that the attacking planes on earth the day before had been a group of rogue Chinese. As a result of the attack, tensions had raised between the US and China. Although China was not claiming any responsibility for the attacks, neither were they directly condemning them either. Julie suspected Xiu wanted to talk to her about the situation and she wasn’t wrong.
Xiu took a seat in the chair in her office, for the first time since Julie had met her seeming just a little nervous. “My father called me this morning and wants me to come down to visit with him this evening. I think it will give me a chance to talk with him about the attacks on you. I’m hoping I will be able to help with the negotiations.
Julie immediately agreed. “Yes, I expected you would come see me. You need to go; I really hope you can make a difference. They’ve made a real mess of it so far.”
Xiu had thought they were finished and was preparing to rise, when Julie surprised her with a challenge. “You must bring your father to the wedding. We really need to find a way out of this mess and it will give me the opportunity to talk with him directly.”
“That is exactly what I had planned to do, pending your approval. I must warn you, though, my relationship with my father is complex. It’s never been quite the same since my mother left.”
“Well, tell him I will take it personally if he doesn’t come to my wedding. He has to know that I’m already unhappy with the situation. Maybe that will do it.” Julie’s look grew harder. “In fact, call me. Let me talk to him. I’ll tell him exactly that.”
“Ok, thanks for understanding my situation. I’ll be there at the wedding, no matter what.”
#
Later that morning, Julie received a visit from her other special envoy, James as she called him now. They had spent way too much time together for it to be otherwise.
James took a seat in the chair in her office. “The word from the President is that he is still negotiating with the Chinese. His take is they knew he was aboard, and therefore he has to take it as an attack on him personally, even though you’re insisting it was intended for you. But he still hopes to get a peaceful resolution.”
“Yes, something is going on there that we need to find out more about. There is obviously a group there that is working for our opposition in this temporal war. The problem is getting someone in the government to talk to us. Xiu is going to try to get help from her father.”
James looked up at her, “I know this is a bad time, but I’d like to return to earth for a couple of days. I hope to be able to visit with my daughter, who hasn’t talked to me for over a year. Last night she finally returned one of my calls, and has agreed to meet with me. I also would like to invite her to the wedding, if that’s ok.”
“It’s better than ok. I knew your daughter from school, as she was in a couple of my classes. I have already asked her to come, but I told her to talk to you. Hopefully she’ll come with you. And I don’t see that I need you here right now. The President knows he can call me directly, and since his beef is the same as mine, we’re both on the same side. I believe the Chinese will back down eventually. They don’t want to take me on, I can promise you that.”
James winced at Julie’s last statement. On that they were in total agreement.
“Ok, thanks for understanding my situation. I’ll be there at the wedding, no matter what.”
#
Xiu didn’t know who Julie talked to, but her ride down to earth was not by shuttle. Instead she was given a ride by Joe in his corvette. And despite what she’d expected, they had no problem with clearance to enter Chinese airspace or to land on her father’s private estate.
As they were approaching the airfield, Joe explained to her how Zeke had figured out how to modify the ship’s drive to operate even in the thick atmosphere near the ground, and that not even Julie could figure out how he had done it. He told her, “You’re much safer in this ship than if you had landed with the other shuttle, and then had to take earth-based transportation. Even with the new anti-gravity plates in use down here too.”
Xiu gave him a bow of gratitude when they arrived, telling him. “Thank you for the ride. My father will also be most grateful.”
Surprising her, Joe returned her bow. “Zeke taught me that one right before we left,” he laughed. He turned to leave but stopped right before he reentered the ship. “Good luck. I will see you at the wedding.” Bowing again, he boarded. Xiu didn’t have the heart to tell him that he’d totally botched that one.
Xiu entered her father’s home, but found he was tied up on a VR conference call for the next couple of hours. “Probably didn’t expect me quite so soon. That’s another thing Space Tech is going to change. The world just got a whole lot smaller.”
Xiu spent some time in her set of rooms. After enjoying the pleasure of being back home for a while, she pulled out the picture of her mother. She was so intensely focused on her thoughts of her mother after seeing her at the obelisk that she didn’t hear her father come up to her.
“I still love her, you know. That’s why I haven’t remarried since she left.”
“Oh, Father, I really, really miss her,” Xiu told him, the tears streaming down her face. She finally took a deep breath and wiped the tears off her cheeks. “Sorry, I guess I’ve gotten too Americanized. I know it is not custom to show one’s emotions so.”
Her father gave her a sad smile. “But I think it should be. On this one, they are so much better than us. Come, dinner is almost ready. Now that one we are very much better than them. After dinner, we need to talk.”
They were served a traditional Chinese dinner with multiple courses, beginning with the traditional cold appetizer, a rice bowl for the main course with several dishes served communally, then their soup, and finally fruit for their dessert. It was always about balance, the thing the westerners missed out on the most. And her father’s cook was one of the best at meeting the balance. Xiu had missed those dinners more than anything else.
After they had been served their after-d
inner tea and quietly sipped it together, the two retired to Chen’s office. There he looked fondly at his daughter for a moment. “It is good that our traditions are beginning to honor the daughter of the family as well as the sons. What you have done for me, daughter, is more than I would have dared hope. However, I need to ask your help.”
“I will endeavor to do that to my utmost, Father. But I also need your help.” Xiu had to place her task from the obelisk above everything else.
“I’d better let you tell me yours first. The one I have is rather complicated.” Chen would have deferred to his daughter anyway, but he sensed hers was somehow even more important than his. That thought was quite frightening to him.
“My task is simple, my father. I need you to attend the wedding of my dear friend and CEO of Space Tech, Julie Randolph. And it is in two days.”
Chen stared at her. Of all that he’d suspected she might say, that was not even remotely on his mind. “But I cannot leave the country. As you will hear in a moment, the situation is critical.”
“Julie was afraid you might tell me no. She very strictly insisted that I call her and let you talk with her. She said she would take it as a personal affront if you did not. And I do believe she meant that as you and I would interpret, not as a westerner. She is very much aware of our culture.”
“Then I guess we need to call her. Let’s do that now. Then I will attempt to explain what I know. It is my hope that you will be able to use your connection with Space Tech to help. Perhaps this call is the most important after all.”
#
Late in the day, Julie received a VR call from Xiu. “I have my father here. He wants to talk with you.”
In that moment, Julie received a vision. She saw Xiu’s father being captured and killed by a group of rebels within China. She also saw it was during her wedding. No! she thought and then she saw a second version. He was at her wedding and received a call during the reception. Yes! she thought. I guess this is how my visions are supposed to work. Mother told me they would start coming more often now. She was wearing her necklace at all times now.
Then Xiu’s father came on the call, Chen Wu she remembered. “My daughter tells me that you are insistent that I come to the wedding. It is not a good time to leave my country right now.”
“I know that sir. But it is imperative that I talk to you, and the wedding is the safest way to do that. No one will suspect that is why you are there. I must ask you this. Do your really think your presence there is going to make any difference with the rebels?” She saw his eyebrows go up at that. “Yes, I know about the rebels and I’ll tell you, sir, I’m prepared to deal with them myself, if they don’t back down. That is why I insist we must talk.”
Julie’s words had the desired effect. “Ok, I will be there. My daughter would never forgive me, and at this moment I’m even more worried about that than the rebels.”
“As you should be. Then I’ll see you at the wedding.”
#
As soon as they disconnected the call, Julie mentally called Zeke. “Come see me. I’ve just had a vision.”
When he arrived, she told him, “Let me see if I can send this to you.” She grasped his hand and concentrated and she saw his eyes widen. “I’m guessing that worked. I can tell you that Xiu’s father has agreed to come to the wedding, so I hope we’re looking at the second vision. But what concerns me are the rebels. I’m beginning to believe that they are a part of this temporal war. It just feels that way to me. So whatever they’re doing probably will have very bad repercussions, and I believe we need to respond to it as such.”
She looked intently at Zeke, knowing how he would feel about what she was about to say. “I believe we need to build one of those warheads of yours, the big one. I’m afraid we may well need it. However, I was wondering if you can make it so we can adjust the level of intensity to match exactly the situation when we see it develop.”
Zeke quickly saw what she was suggesting. “Yeah, I believe I can do that, but I’ll have to be the one to deploy it. I’ll need to be able to adjust the fields at the last minute to produce the desired results.”
“Not happy about it, Zeke, but I’ll be with you and I’ll be the one flying us.” She saw he was about to object. “No arguments. We’re about to be married and we’re going to do this all together from now on.”
He smiled at that. “Ok, you win. You can still fly your corvette better than I can anyway. Just in case though, I’m going to work on the shields. I think I can get a little more out of them if we’re flying in atmosphere at the time. Since the drive fields are wrapped all around the ship, I can use them to reinforce the shields.”
“Good idea, Zeke. We do want to see that daughter and son of ours in our near future.”
#
James was very nervous as he met his daughter. At least it sounded like Julie had accidentally become involved, and he had no doubt that his daughter would be at the wedding. So his task seemed to be safely assured, but he suspected that his relationship to his daughter was very important to his task. And even if not, it was important to him.
When he arrived at the restaurant, he was surprised to see it was a family-owned pizza restaurant. He remembered the father-daughter outings they used to have when life was simpler for the two of them. Even then his marriage had been in trouble, but his daughter had had no way of knowing that. But when they had their outings, for a little while he could just enjoy the time with her.
Inside he easily spotted Nicole, so he just smiled at the hostess, pointing to her table. Hurrying over to the table, he remembered the game they used to play when she was little. “My dear princess, your escort has arrived. Shall we partake of the Italian pie?”
Nicole laughed. “Yay, dear prince, we shall. And I have been told, the pie they have here is the best in the world. I have a very good source on that.”
They enjoyed the very best pizza in the world for some time that evening. They talked a long time afterward. James had a very long speech memorized he was going to give her, asking for forgiveness, but he never got around to it. He sensed that he didn’t need it, but that somehow Nicole had already found it on her own. Invariably, the topic came to Julie.
“I knew Julie before she knew she was Julie. She was going to school here as Miranda, and she didn’t look anything like she does as Julie. But she tutored Emily and some of the rest of us in math. She was so smart, but she made it sound so easy that always, by the time she finished, we all could do it.”
She smiled as she thought back to that time, and seeing the look in her dad’s eyes, went on, “She and I were in an astronomy class together. She was always so far ahead in the class, and would read entire books on some subject mentioned briefly. I remember the first day or so the instructor asked her a question, and she not only answered his question, but wanted to know why the book didn’t cover all the details. It was about supermassive black holes, and we now know every galaxy pretty well has one at the center.
“Miranda wanted to know why the book didn’t mention that the supermassive black holes had to be there, or at least the seeds of them, at the beginning of the universe. That is the only possible explanation for why the supermassive black holes align their poles even across the tremendous distances within the filaments and strings that make up the structure of the universe. I learned a lot about that because I was in Miranda’s study group, and I asked her after class. But the poor instructor had no idea and he never asked her a question in class again.”
James laughed at her story, but then he just stared at his daughter. “So you understand all that?” he finally asked. When she nodded, he went on. “You should talk to Julie about a job when you graduate. We’ll soon be able to travel quickly across the solar system and explore many things.”
Nicole laughed. “I’ve already done that. I know you saw the VR cast on the little incident when Julie was having dinner with some of the kids from the Space Academy. I was there during the attack that happened at the
end of her party. I wound up getting a ride with Julie and Emily in their little “corvette”, as Julie calls it. She showed me around the ship, and told me to come see her when I get out of school.”
She smiled at her father. “But tell me this. Julie said you traveled with her when they went to survey the area where they were expecting to find her father, and I know you went back with them when they went to get him. I saw you on the VR coverage. What was it like traveling so far?”
“That’s just it. It only took us a few hours and we are talking many millions of miles. Or a few light minutes as I suspect we will begin to start using to talk about traveling within the solar system. And with the gravity plates and the way the drives handle the inertia, it was quite comfortable traveling. Like being aboard one of those cruise ships in very mild seas. In some ways it was quite boring, but in others it was so very exciting.”
Nicole laughed at his analogy about the cruise ships, but he could see the brightness in her eyes. His daughter was going to be an explorer in the near future. For a man who loved science, to see that in his daughter was thrilling.
They wound up staying there until the restaurant was starting to close, and the two made their plans to go to the wedding together as family.
#
It was the second night. Julie was to meet herself at the assigned hour. That sounded so funny when she said it that way to Zeke. She had decided to have him there too. She just had an idea she would be able to include him in the conversation. Wouldn’t it be neat if the other Julie had some way to communicate with her Zeke too, and they could have all four of them in the conversation.
